He prefaced his remarks by noting that he had stayed up until 2 a.m. watching election coverage and was still hearing Wolf Blitzer in his head. Then he warmly greeted the chair.

"I know that as an Englishman this is absolutely none of my business," he said, ""but I'm just so very grateful it was you.

"I love Clint Eastwood," Day-Lewis added. "This is no satirical comment on him or his politics. When I saw him talking to a chair in front of a group of strangers, I thought, 'I've got to try that.' That's a challenge.

"I didn't pull it off quite as well as him – I've got some way to go."

Earlier in the evening, Britannias host Alan Cumming joked that Day-Lewis prepared for receiving his award by checking into the Beverly Hilton a month early and eating nightly meals of "tasteless chicken."

Day-Lewis later went on to describe the responsibility he felt playing Abraham Lincoln.

"I feel that if I go down in flames with this, bringing the film with me, having desecrated the memory of the most dearly loved president this country has ever known, perhaps the greatest man of the 19th century, I'd probably never rise again."